


The Godsons

by aquariumsdelight



Series: Davekat Week 2017, or The Week That Was Longer Than Seven Days [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkwardness, First Meetings, M/M, Mafia AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 12:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16995042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquariumsdelight/pseuds/aquariumsdelight
Summary: Prompt: Mafia members!AU - Bro’s porn business is a money laundering service and Karkat’s dad is Spades Slick; Dave and Karkat meet during an awkward confrontation.Karkat was used to sitting in on his dad’s meetings by now. He’d been doing it since Spades took him aside and told him that if he was going to inherit the Midnight Crew, he had to learn how to “manage the business”. He thought he had seen it all. But the briefing said nothing about Dave Strider.





	The Godsons

This was awkward.

Karkat was used to sitting in on his dad’s meetings by now. He’d been doing it since Spades took him aside and told him that if he was going to inherit the Midnight Crew, he had to learn how to “manage the business”. It was the same day he got to pick out his weapon of choice and got his first cane. Karkat had been 10.

He’d seen it all. Mob bosses who underestimated what his dad could do. Slimy freelancers who’d overestimated the limits of his patience and found themselves dead broke in a foreign country. Karkat was beyond surprise now. Well, then these two walked in.

Karkat turned his attention to the stand-off in front of him, which had been going on for five minutes now, which was practically unheard of. On one side, it was Spades at the head of the table, with him and Diamonds Droog on his sides. And on the other sat a middle-aged man with blonde hair with a baseball hat. He ran some sort of puppet porn business as a front for the money laundering that went on under the table. Or was it a front? The briefing hadn’t been entirely clear on that part.

Anyways, the issue was that Broderick must’ve recently got hit with the dumbfuck disease, because instead of working on their last batch of dirty money, he sent in a request for a raise. While Karkat’s still pretty sure he’ll be scrubbing his blood off of the walls in half an hour, he’s gotta admit it took balls. So his vote pushed it 3-2 on giving Strider a second chance.

But holy fuck, was he regretting it.

The briefing said nothing about Dave Strider. Or as he’d introduced himself, “DJ Sicknastyy, that’s a double y, best beats you’ll hear this side of the farmer’s market, give it up for the sounds heard around the world and then some.” He had to physically restrain himself from punching him in the face right then and there. And look at him! While Broderick and Spades stared each other down, Dave had his _feet on the goddamned table_. His sunglasses were still on.

Karkat muffled his groans by facepalming into the table.

“You need to start working again.” Karkat looked back up as Spades said the first words either of them had spoken to each other since he said “We’ll talk downstairs.” at the door.

“Have you seen the pay increase I asked for?”

Spades’ eyes narrowed. “We’re not interested.”

“Then no.” The tension rolled over the table in waves. Shit, he was a dead man walking. Karkat brought his breathing in check and tried not to look like he was bracing for sound of a gunshot, even though he totally was. He looked over at Dave, whose synapses seem to have finally sparked one point of intelligence and had pulled his feet off the table, settling for tipping the chair back instead. What the fuck.

He must’ve caught Dave’s eyes somehow, because the guy finally sat up straight in the chair. Finally. Karkat was about to look away when Dave waved at him like they were friends who spotted each other from across the mall and not two kids who were about to see one dad get murdered by the other’s dad. All cool here!

Karkat swore if he ever met him outside of here he would at the very _least_ strife him into the ground.

“Nice boy you got there. I would hate to see something happen to him.” Spades’ expression doesn’t change as he says it, and neither does Broderick’s, but Dave’s sure does. Karkat wishes he could say that he didn’t get a sick pleasure from watching his face turn white, but it would be a horrible lie. Dave turns to look at his dad, but he doesn’t seem bothered.

“I could say the same about yours. It’s a dangerous business.”

“Yeah.” He can feel the rage pouring off Spades in, well, spades. Karkat could practically see the guy’s life expectancy drop by the second. But who knows? He’d honestly been surprised by how long he’d lasted. Most guys his dad wanted to kill would be dead by now by either Diamonds or the guy himself. From his experience, meetings only lasted two minutes or two hours, and Spades didn’t care too much for those in between.

Strider leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Slick, if you’re not going to give me a raise and you’re not going to fire me, then what am I here for?”

“Who said anything about not firing you?”

“Is that the case.” It was not a question. He said it like he was about to fight his way to the window and take Dave with him as soon as he heard the right answer. Karkat found himself reaching for his sickle.

“We’ll see.” Slick tilted his head towards Karkat, never breaking eye contact. “Boys? Leave the adults to their conversation.” What? He hadn’t left a meeting early in ages. He hadn’t even left when they were discussing whether or not they should remove him as the heir. Or when that fight was about to break out and it was 3 to 1 for every member. What the hell made this moronic groinhumper special?

Karkat shot out of his chair and out of the room. A few moments later, he heard the door close again, but he didn’t turn around. He only stopped once he hit the main living room and realized something: he had absolutely no idea what to do now.

“Uh, hey.” Oh God he did say “boys”, didn’t he.

He pivoted to look at Dave Strider, because of course he was following him. Karkat looked him up and down, and then again. Every time he looked at him, he noticed another nauseating detail, like a douchey Find and Search. Really, what the hell.

“So. What do we do know? I noticed you’ve got a pretty sick Xbox setup-”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Dude, calm down.”

Dave raised his hands in defense, but it’s too late: Karkat was officially over the edge with this shitbag. “Did you hear what was going on over there? Because I’m starting to seriously doubt, no, I seriously fucking doubt you we’re paying attention to the catastrophic shitshow that was. Here’s a spoiler: your dad is seconds from getting a face full of new holes.”

“Okay well first of all he’s not my dad. And second, I’m pretty sure Bro can handle himself.”

“Sure.” Karkat crossed his arms as his mind was filled with fumes. He hated this. He wanted to grab Dave Strider, go up to the roof, and then throw his limb body off and see how many seconds it took to hit the ground. No, he wanted to go back in time and punch his past self for giving Broderick Strider a second chance. Wait, no, he wanted to march back to the meeting room and prove that he could get the Striders to shut up about raises and get back to whatever musty apartment building they crawled out from, and that he was more than able of being the head of the Midnight Crew. Hey, why not do it all?

It took a few more minutes (and violent thoughts) before he allowed himself to calm down.

“Alright, follow me. We can do something other than stare at each other across the room like a pair of lost kids at a theme park that closed three hours ago.”

“Mouthy one, aren’t you?”

“If I ever hear you talk again, it’ll be eons too late.”

Karkat walked over the Gothic couch and flopped onto it, switching on the TV. As long as he kept the volume low, they wouldn’t be able to hear it. Besides, there was always captions. Dave sat down on the other side of the coach as Karkat mindlessly flipped through the channels. One film in particular caught his eye and he clicked it immediately. A groan came from his partner on the couch which was as much as he expected.

“You can’t be serious. Not even ironically serious, cause this is way too on-the-nose. Buddy. Friend. My pal.”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “My TV, my rules. You will watch Pretty Woman and you will like it, unless you’d rather go back to that verbal equivalent of dynomite.”

“Wow, Emma Roberts looks so different in this movie.”

“It’s Julia Roberts.”

“Right.”

* * *

So you had to admit, Dave wasn’t the worst human being this world has ever coughed up.

Not saying that he wasn’t annoying as all hell: you were right about that one. But somewhere between Vivian rubbing her cash in all of those snobby salespeoples’ faces and Edward’s great rescue in the white limo, Dave gets a little more tolerable. Karkat even catches himself making a few jokes back and forth with him about how Vivian totally deserves to be treated better by literally everyone. And while Dave never really smiles, he does do this little one-pixel smirk that threatens to erupt all over his entire face if he’s not careful, which is almost better.

The conversation moves from rom-coms to movies in general to finding out which interests the two of them _do_ share, after all. It’s weird, but Karkat can actually talk to him about the stuff he’s interested in without knowing he’s going to be permanently judged because of it. Or he will, because Dave is still an asshole, but it’s not serious. For the first time in a while, Karkat can feel himself relaxing without forcing himself to.

He’s in the middle of a rant about when a gunshot rings out.

“Fuck.” They both say at the same time, and look at each other. During the movie, they’d gotten closer together, and Karkat has to rear back before looking to the right to see if there’s any action. Nothing.

“Not again.”

"Why is this a thing that regularly happens?” Karkat ignores his question and stands up, moving slowly towards the hallway. If a pair of dueling adults were about to come bowling through, he wasn’t going to get caught up in it unless he was prepared.

A minute passed, and then the sound of the meeting room door opening creaked through the house. Spades and Broderick walked in through the archway, walking right past Karkat and straight for the front door. Neither of them seemed to trust each other any more, but clearly something had resolved. Dave’s...guardian? also wasn’t bleeding, so that was probably good.

“Good that we could come to an agreement.”

Strider nodded tersely, his hand still on his blade’s handle. “Right.” He looked over at Dave, who was still sitting down, and jerked his head towards the door.  Dave quickly sprung to his feet and offered his hand to Karkat. Okay? He had no idea what this was about, but Karkat reached out and completed the handshake. As they shook, he could feel Dave pass a slip of paper into his hand.

“See ya.” With a salute, he was at the door.

Karkat waited until he was up in his room with the door locked to uncrumble the slip.

pesterchum: turntechGodhead

**Author's Note:**

> soooooo there's a few fics that have been floating around my drive since 2017; some finished, some not (*ﾟｰﾟ)ゞ
> 
> currently trying to share them all!


End file.
